Mourning
by NotreDame
Summary: Oneshot. Someone goes back to Castle Wyvern just after the massacre.


Synopsis: someone goes back to Castle Wyvern just after the massacre.

All the characters appearing in Gargoyles and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of NotreDame. Thank you to Samuel B. for the beta-reading.

_Mourning_

**Scotland, 994 A.D.**

She came back to Castle Wyvern a few nights after the massacre. Everything was just like she had left it: pieces of broken stone everywhere and a nasty smell of burnt wood. There was no one, no light, no sound.

Slowly, she walked to the top of the tower, respectfully avoiding walking on the remaining of her dead siblings, and she finally reached the top of the highest tower. Her beloved mate was still there, still asleep, a sad expression on his handsome face. She concentrated hard and tried a few words in Latin. She had been working on incantations that would bring him back to life the whole previous night. It had to work: she wasn't going to remain alone for the remaining of her miserable life!

But his face remained still and cold. She tried another incantation, and then another one. Nothing would work. Tears were running down her face and she had to stop trying: she couldn't speak any more. She had another surge of sadness while looking down at the other 'survivors': the former leader, who was also her mentor and her rookery father, the three young ones, the beast… They didn't deserve to sleep in stone forever. The other ones didn't deserve to have been killed in their sleep. Those humans were going to PAY!

Suddenly, she felt enraged, shouted and ran down the stairs on all fours. She entered a room without thinking and realised it was probably Princess Katherine's room. She smashed the furniture, tore the curtains into small pieces, imagining she was plunging her talons into the human's dollish face. It felt good. But not good enough. That gargoyle-hater had probably thrown her eggs into a chasm and she couldn't stand that idea. One day, she would make all humans feel as bad as she was feeling just now!

She left the room when everything was broken, feeling slightly calmer, broke the furniture in two other rooms, felt even calmer and realised that she was hungry. Her sense of smell told her that the kitchen she had never entered was downstairs. Those humans had probably emptied it but it was worth having a look.

It was empty indeed. But there were still meat leftovers in the corner of a room: apparently, someone had been eating there the previous day. Probably a human. But why here? Suddenly, Demona felt cold all over. Humans used pieces of stones to build houses or roads. Where they going to use dead gargoyles as a building material?

No, she was not going to let them do that, ever! But what could she do? She could not give proper funerals to all of them. The idea of crushing all these stones into dust and performing a goodbye ceremony for each of them was just too much for her. But they all deserved it. So what was she going to do?

An idea finally came to her mind. She knew of a secret room in the Archmage's cave, whose entrance was invisible and sealed magically. She could bring them all into that cave. It was going to take time but at least, no one was going to desecrate their last sleep.

So she found bags and a wheelbarrow and went to the parapet where the hatchlings used to roost together. She piled pieces of hatchlings together, feeling bad and better at the same time. From time to time, she could find a small claw or feet, or even a cute little face. What a waste. Innocent 16-years-old who would never grow up. Then she took the way to the cave. The room was where it used to be, vast and empty. Relieved, she piled everything inside and went back to the castle.

It took her the whole night to perform that task. After the hatchlings, she buried the grown gargoyles. She noticed that two of her rookery siblings had apparently roosted hand in hand and it gave her an idea. She tried as much as possible to bury the couples together. From time to time, she could identify a face: the blue one who was always telling jokes, the beaked brother who had stolen a book from Prince Malcolm, the green mother who had taught her most of her fighting skills… Sometimes she just had to stop and to wipe away her tears, or to shout.

She finally brought what she believed to be the last gargoyle with the other ones. Her hands were bleeding but it was nothing compared to her inner pain. She tried to find something to say aloud, a last tribute, some goodbye words. She had too much on her heart. "My dear siblings…" she said hesitantly. "My dear clan… I…"

She could say that she was sorry. She could say that had she not imagined that plot with the Vikings, they would still be alive now. But words didn't come to her mind. If she was blaming herself, she was going to hate herself forever and she wouldn't survive. She had to hate someone else or she was going to go mad.

"My dear clan, you suffered a horrible and unfair death", she finally said. "I'll never forget any of you. You all taught me something. You elders gave me your knowledge. You siblings gave me your friendship. You hatchlings gave me hope. I'll never forget you and I'll see to it that no gargoyle ever dies again in the hands of a human like you did. You have my word."

The mourning gargoyle kissed the broken hand of a hatchling, left the room and sealed its door. She didn't know that she was going to come back one thousand years later to take pieces of stone and make Coldstone, a being of science of sorcery out of it. She wanted to kiss her sleeping mate goodbye and to leave as fast as possible. There were other gargoyles clans in Scotland, she knew it. She just wanted to join them and to stop being alone.


End file.
